The GoF Train Scene (was:Re: Humanity, Kant, Caricatures, and Draco)

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 146647

Carol:
> It's unclear just how much the spectators saw from the stands. Did
> they realize that Krum had Crucio'd Cedric and that Harry had to stun
> him? If so, do they wonder why Krum isn't in Azkaban? Do they know why
> Karkaroff ran away after the third task and deserted his students? Do
> they know that Fake!Moody was a Death Eater, even if they don't know
> his name?
> 
> I see no evidence that they know any of these things. So while Draco
> and his fellow sons of Death Eaters know that Voldemort is indeed
> back, and by the end of OoP, Draco's idolized father is in Azkaban,
> but I think he's very far from knowing the full situation.

Ceridwen:
I snipped most of this, though the entire discussion is great.

I'm thinking that, no matter what the WW at large thought about 
Karkaroff's desertion at the time, he was found dead by the beginning 
of HBP, a year after he ran away, killed by LV or his followers.  There 
would be quite a few people who remembered the trials after VWI, and 
Karkaroff's questioning.  Even with the MoM ban on news during OotP, by 
the time Karkaroff's body is found, the Ministry has admitted that LV 
is back, Dementors are breeding all over Britain, and it would be easy 
for thinking witches and wizards to put these events together in some 
semblance of order.

Draco, as a student, might not take as much notice about what's going 
on in the wider WW.  And, he has his father in Azkaban, which probably 
occupies a lot of his thoughts.  But he must have heard some discussion 
by HBP, from his mother and his aunt, and from friends and their 
parents.  Though they may not know of the things Crouch!Moody did.

Ceridwen, adding her two cents.